The Beliefs of John Robert Stevens

John Robert Stevens used the term “cross experience” to describe the believer’s personal acceptance of the fullness of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. The concept of the cross experience includes salvation, but it expresses more than that: on the cross, Christ reconciled us to God, forgave our trespasses, abolished the demands of the Law, defeated principalities and powers, perfected those who are sanctified, and brought us to fullness of life (Colossians 1:19-22; Ephesians 2:11-16; Colossians 2:13-15; Hebrews 10:8-14).

Christ’s complete salvation does not end at forgiveness, but in sanctification and transformation. The cross was not just a place where Christ died, but the place where the victory of the Lord was made complete.

Christ’s victory on the cross is not some mystical hocus-pocus. Not only do you identify yourself with the cross, but you must also experience it…. As you walk in the Spirit, Christ’s cross and the victory He won on it will become a real, living experience. Christ’s victory must be manifested in a people who willingly submit first to the victory of His cross being worked within them.¹

Stevens wrote, “The work of the cross is the shortest way into the righteousness of God, and it’s the only way.”² He contrasted the cross experience with the idea of disciplining the flesh nature, asserting that righteousness is only imparted by God the Father through Christ Jesus.

Because of this, it is important that the believer be aggressive in appropriating the fullness of what Christ did for each of us, and not resist, refuse, or reject the power of the cross. Righteousness cannot be worked up in the flesh. However, Stevens taught that an initiative on the part of the believer was required in bringing the sin nature to the cross of Christ and nailing it there. As the Scripture says, through Christ we are crucified to the world and the world to us (Galatians 6:14).

The term cross appears 1,581 times in Stevens’ written materials.